One way to find out

there’s 2 more small dividers and a drawer to come

How much wood can you cut away before your furniture implodes? One way to find out. For many years, I’ve studied the work of some anonymous 17th-century joiners and turners whose cupboards, chests, chests of drawers and more are some of the most complex pieces made in early New England. I’ve recently made two copies of a cupboard from this shop and 20 years ago made one of the chests of drawers. My latest project based on their work is this small box with three drawers - we often refer to it as a “dressing” box - but I’m not sure we really know what its purpose was. The box compartment is divided up into little cubbies - and that’s what I want to look at now. I framed the main section of the box a few weeks ago then got stumped when it was time to set the bottom in - it pushes the limits of what the material can handle.

The top section is the box compartment. The stiles are maple, 1 3/8” squares. The inner corners are cut away to square off the box interior. Saw cuts and chisel work reduce those 1 3/8” squares to 1” thick at the joints. I did all the joinery first - mortises, panel grooves, holes to pin the joints at assembly. Then cut out the inner corner. So the tally for this stile is:

• 2 mortises, 5/16” x 3 3/4” x 1 1/8” (next time they’ll be 1/4”wide)

• 2 pin holes in each mortise

• 1 panel groove (on the side) 3/16” x 1/2” deep

• one longitudinal notch reaching to just above the bottoms of the mortises

• a smaller, shallower notch across the stile for the box bottom to tuck into. 3/16” high - depth is minimal -

front stile